Regime ‘uses militias for massacres’

GENEVA: The Syrian government is reportedly using local militias known as Popular Committees to commit mass killings which are at times sectarian in nature, UN human rights investigators said yesterday.
“In a disturbing and dangerous trend, mass killings allegedly perpetrated by Popular Committees have at times taken on sectarian overtones,” the UN commission of inquiry on Syria, led by Brazilian Paulo Pinheiro, said in its latest report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
“Some appear to have been trained and armed by the government,” they said.
The independent investigators, who cited accounts from witnesses and victims, said people were being harassed or arrested by government-allied militia because they came from regions perceived as being supportive of the revolt.
Popular Committees have been documented as operating across Syria, “where at times they are alleged to be participating in house-to-house searches, identity checks, mass arrests, looting and acting as informants,” they said in a 10-page report.
The conflict is mired in a “destructive stalemate” amid heavy shelling and air raids by government forces, they said.
Both sides have committed violations against civilians, the UN investigators said. They were pursuing probes into about 20 cases of massacres, including three in Homs at the start of the year, despite their lack of access to the country.
The bodies of some of those killed in massacres have been burned or dumped in rivers, they said.
“Indiscriminate and widespread shelling, the regular bombardment of cities, mass killing and the deliberate firing on civilian targets have come to characterize the daily lives of civilians in Syria,” Pinheiro said.
Hospitals have been targeted and medical staff arrested, he said, denouncing the use of medical care “as a tactic of war.” Pinheiro called for a political solution to the crisis which he said had set off a “tidal wave” of displacement.
Syria’s ambassador Faysal Khabbaz dismissed the UN report as based on “partial information from untrustworthy sources” and accused Qatar and Turkey of “supporting terrorism” in Syria.
Meanwhile, Syrian opposition campaigners said at least 20 bodies of young men shot by security forces were found on Sunday in a small waterway running through the contested city of Aleppo.
It was the largest number of bodies lifted in a single day from what became known as “the river of martyrs,” after 65 bodies turned up in late January. An average of several bodies a day have been appearing in the river since, several activists in the northern city, which is near Turkey, told Reuters.
Most bodies found so far floated down the River Queiq to the opposition-held Bustan Al-Qasr neighborhood after being dumped in an upstream district in central Aleppo under the control of Assad’s forces where several security compounds are located, opposition activists in Aleppo said.
Video footage taken on Sunday, which could not be immediately verified, showed 16 bodies of young men dressed in casual clothes lying on the banks of the small stream.
Some had their hands bound, and many appeared to have been shot in the head or had deep wounds to the neck. Some were gagged. One body was covered with mud and flies.
Louay Al-Halabi, an activist in Aleppo, said he was present when the bodies were dug up. He added that bodies have been turning up in Quieq when the water level, which is controlled from a government held area, is on the high side.
“I counted 23 bodies today. One man literally had his brains blown out,” Halabi said.
Halabi said the men appear to have been prisoners at security compounds in government-controlled areas taken either dead or alive to a public park in the center of Aleppo that has been turned into a barracks.
Mohammad Nour, another activist who said he had went to the site of the bodies, said the men were in their 20s and 30s. He added that they were a mix of civilians and captured rebel fighters.
“Six men were identified so far. Five of them were detained by airforce intelligence last week,” he said.